This is the kind of local government silliness that really drives me up a tree. The town of Peoria, Arizona (Peoria is basically a suburb of Glendale which in turn is a suburb of Phoenix) apparently has paid $81,000 for a new town logo:

Peoria's new tagline, "Naturally Connected," came under attack this week.

The city is working on establishing a brand name to better market itself.

"Naturally connected?" resident Dolores Ceballos said at Tuesday's City
Council meeting. "I'm still trying to feel it here. I can't find it.

"Nine years ago, I moved here, not because of a logo. I came for the downtown and for the schools."

Ceballos questioned the city's expenditure of taxpayer dollars for such an endeavor.

Peoria has paid $81,000 to North Star Destinations Strategies in
Tennessee, which developed the tagline and new logo that features the
city's name with swirling lines and Southwestern colors of blue, green and brown.

But what the Republic misses, but those of us with any business experience understand, the logo development, overpriced as it may be, is only a fraction of the branding effort. The town is going to have to spend 10x this amount to start pushing the logo and the craptacular "naturally connected" tagline into peoples' faces.

Corsette said that because the tagline and logo are not in use yet, it's hard for people to feel a connection.

"It's not surprising people don't get it," he said. "Once we start
using it in context of everything the city does, it will resonate with
people and take on some meaning and it will be a positive thing for us."

An important component to the draft manual is the education of the public and city employees, he said.

Can't wait to see the time and effort on the manual and training effort that will go into educating public employees on how to use the logo.

Given that Phoenix's extremely expensive effort to convince people that downtown Phoenix is actually called "Copper Square" has been nothing but a disaster, I'm surprised Peoria would choose to go down the same path. I guess in the world of cookie-cutting Arizona suburbs in takes a marketing firm from Tenn. to set you apart by providing a completely arbitrary slogan.

Tom R

$81,000 is nothing. Baltimore spent $500,000 in 2006 for a consultant to come up the slogan 'Get In On It".

dearieme

In the next few years a good motto for a city might be "Not bankrupt".

My friend just told me that Portland got a new slogan too. She couldn't even remember it. I checked their website and still failed to figure out what it is. I think it used to be "the city that works" because that's what is on the side of all the city-owned vehicles---not sure about THAT. The website is kinda drab too.

How did you all find out how much the cities paid for those new slogans?

Remember when Phoenix spent $500,000 to "beautify" the Squaw Peak Piestewa Parkway, ending up with various silly "pots" on the sound wall, to represent the Hohokam - all done by a firm from the NorthEast?

At least we had some humor - when a wag gold-painted a toilet and put it on the sound wall near these "pots." It was pretty funny, but the city was remarkably efficient at removing the offending object de art.

Bob S

Remember when NBC paid around $800,000 for a new logo, a big red N, that U Nebraska had already copyrighted?

Not too long ago, Baltimore spent something like $500k for the new slogan "Baltimore: Get In On It"

Tony Edwards

In "The Cruel Sea" one of the characters, Lockhart, is reminiscing about his time in an advertising agency. To informally resign, when asked for a slogan for Bolger's Treacle Toffee, he thinks for a moment, then writes, "Bolger's Treacle Toffee, Rich and Dark ,like the Aga Khan"! Then he collects his hat and leaves.
Thought you might enjoy it, but I'm not going to bother explaning who the Aga Khan was to the younger set.

rich v

What's wrong with the name Peoria, love or LEAVE IT!!!!

I've asked around and most people I talked to agree this is some politician
that wants to mark his or her territory and that if you follow the money trail, someone is getting a little a kick back.

I'm so sick of government wasting money, on things that DON'T improve the quality of life.